Firstly, a snippet from Granny Battle… bits and bobs have been coming together lately on this, so here’s a first rough of Ellis’ first experience of meeting Granny Battle (this is very rough!)… he’s just walked into her house…

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Ellis backed away and stepped in something that just felt… wrong.

‘Now then,’ said the daft old lady, ‘don’t move. You’ve just trodden in the Odour Eater I was making. Stupid dragon made me drop it out the pan. Just hold still – once it works out that your feet don’t smell, it’ll loosen its grip. Er – your feet don’t smell, do they?’

Ellis shut his eyes tight and said ‘No!’ very quietly. Whatever he’d stepped in was slithering around his ankles, exploring inside his trainers and investigating between his toes. Suddenly it stopped slithering and started to quiver.

‘Oh dear,’ the old lady said, ‘I thought you said you didn’t have smelly feet?’

‘I don’t!’ squeaked Ellis. The quivering got faster and faster, then suddenly it stopped, and whatever it was slithered off his feet. Ellis opened his eyes and looked down. He was standing in the middle of a splat of gloopy brown goo. He looked up at the old lady in horror.

‘Come on, come on,’ she said, ‘You’re all right now, obviously just a borderline case. I’d do something about that though, before it gets any worse. Step off it, quick now!’

Ellis stepped out the splat as quickly as he could and followed the old lady into the kitchen. She put the frying pan down on the table, crossed her arms, and stared hard at him. ‘You’re the boy from number 23, aren’t you?’ she asked, ‘Ellis, isn’t it? Likes drawing dragons? Close your mouth and just answer.’

Ellis closed his mouth and nodded. What was going on, he thought?

‘I thought so,’ said the old lady smuggly. ‘I’m Granny Battle.’ She stuck her hand out and Ellis jumped. She seemed to expect him to shake it, so he did, carefully.

‘I’m a slooth,’ said Granny.

‘Don’t you mean a sleuth?’ asked Ellis, hearing the spelling mistake.

‘No,’ said Granny, ‘Not a sleuth, a slooth. There’s a very big difference.’

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So, that’s that then.

And what’s with the ploughmen, you’re thinking? Well. Whilst spending a rather crazy evening in Bradford recently, I was introduced to a poet who nonchalantly ate a ploughman’s-in-a-bag in front of me. Having never seen such a snack before, and being very impressed with it’s bizarreness, and it being my birthday the following day, he presented me with a couple of bags of the said snack, then wrote me a birthday poem. I won’t mention Colin Firth.

If you don’t believe that ploughman’s-in-a-bag exists, here’s the proof:

Isn’t that just the daftest thing ever?! I saved that last one for my other half, but unfortunately he had one of those cracker-eating moments, and lost half of it – and one pickle – on the floor.